Diet and exercise regime can help with knee OA

Overweight and obese adults with knee osteoarthritis (OA) may benefit from a regime that combines dieting for weight loss with exercise, a new study has found.

Dr Stephen Messier from Wake Forest University in the US conducted a trial involving 454 overweight over-55s who had pain and radiographic knee OA between July 2006 and April 2011.

One group was put on an intensive diet; another embarked on the same diet but with exercise; and the final group just did the exercise.

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It was found that the group combining both had less knee pain and inflammation, faster walking speed and better physical health-related quality of life at the end of the trial than the other two groups.

Dr Messier said in the journal JAMA: 'Intensive weight loss may have both anti-inflammatory and biomechanical benefits; when combining weight loss with exercise, patients can safely achieve a mean long-term weight loss of more than 10 per cent, with an associated improvement in symptoms.'

OA in the knee causes its surfaces to become damaged and the joint is no longer able to move as well as it should, causing the body to generate an immune response.

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